Google

Google is the world's dominant online search engine, but also offers email, online word processing, and other services.

On June 1, 2009, Google announced that it would start selling eBooks directly to the public. The move, which is expected before the end of 2009, would make Google a competitor with Amazon, eBooks.com, iTunes and other eBook retailers.InformationWeek: Google To Sell E-Books (June 1, 2009)

On April 20, 2009, Google Labs held a press event where the company unveiled the Google News Timeline, a product that allows users to receive their search result in a graphical timeline format. The tool renders its search results via Google News, YouTube and Google News Archives.Editors Weblog.org: Google News Timeline: a new way... (April 21, 2009)

On January 14, 2009, reports said Google planned to lay off 100 full-time recruiters in the wake of a "broad advertising slowdown." The company also said it would close three engineering offices.Valleywag: Google's Loss of Innocence: 100 Jobs Cut (January 14, 2009) Los Angeles Times: Google to lay off 100 recruiters, close engineering offices (January 15, 2009)

• 1996: Page and Brin begin to collaborate on a search engine called BackRub
• 1998: Andy Bechtolsheim wrote a $100,000 check to Page and Brin to finance their start-up
• 1999: Attained first round of funding from Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
• 2000: Google and Yahoo! announced a partnership
• 2002: Developed AdWords
• 2004: Google IPO's on NASDAQ

Google began a tradition of Aprils Fools jokes in 2000 with the pseudo-release of its MentalPlex technology, which would reportedly read the user's brainwaves and eliminate the need to even type in the search request. Most of the jokes are laughable implausible applications or services based partly on real capabilities but poking fun at Google's leadership role in online search.

Google was founded by two Stanford University PhD students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. They began Google as a research project in early 1996, calling it BackRub since its function was to check the number of links to a site (called backlinks) to rank it. The search engine was first set up at Stanford under the domain google.stanford.edu. On September 15, 1997, Google Inc. was founded.

On July 22, 2008, TechCrunch reported that Google was in final negotiations to buy Digg, an online community site where users post and rank articles, blogs, and other media. The acquisition price was reportedly "around $200 Million."TechCrunch: Google in Final Negotiations To Acquire Digg for "Around $200 Million" (July 22, 2008) The sale never went through because Google reportedly decided not to go through with the sale.Washington Post: Google Walks Away From Digg Deal (July 26, 2008)

Google came under fire from the Chinese government in January 2009 for not removing pornographic content from its search results in China. Distribution of pornography is forbidden in China and the government launched a campaign in 2009 to remove such content from the Internet. Google apologized for not immediately removing pornographic links after an order from the Chinese government. Several other search engines were also criticized.Times of India: China begins blocking websites after shaming MSN, Google over porn distribution (January 11, 2009)

In January 2009, The Times of London published an article that criticized Google for the effect its searches has on the environment. According to the article, two searches on Google uses as much carbon dioxide as the bottling of water for tea.The Times of London: Revealed: the environmental impact of Google searches (January 11, 2009) Google responded with a statement on its official blog which said that the estimates in the article were too high and gave Google's own statistics.The official Google blog: Powering a Google Search (January 11, 2009) The following day, TechCrunch reported that the Times article misrepresented statements made by physicist Alex Wissner-Gross. Wissner-Gross reported that he did not say that two searches on Google used as much carbon dioxide as the bottling of water for tea, but rather made more vague statements about the energy Google and other search engine companies used.TechCrunch: Revealed: The Times Made Up That Stuff About Google... (January 12, 2009)

On March 12, 2009, Google launched the service Google Voice, which is an improved version of the online voicemail and call management system GrandCentral, acquired by Google in 2007. While still providing many of GrandCentral's features, Google Voice will also improve the way users access their phones, allowing them to acquire voicemail transcripts, make cheaper calls internationally and archive and search through all existing text messages.Official Google Blog: Here Comes Google Voice (March 11, 2009)

Google Presents Google Chrome OS at its Mountain View headquarters on November 19th, 2009.http://www.pcworld.com/article/182475/5_expectations_for_googles_chrome_os_event.html

• • Google Code University
  • Google Code: Summer of Code
  • Google Docs & Spreadsheets
  • Gmail
  • Google Image Search
  • Google Video
  • Google News
  • Google Maps
  • Google Blog Search
  • Google Product Search (formerly Froogle)
  • Google Groups
  • Google Language Tools
  • Google Labs
  • AdWords
  • AdSense
  • Google Apps
  • Google Mobile
  • SearchMash

• • Google Desktop
  • Google Earth

• • YouTube
  • Picasa
  • Blogger
  • Dodgeball
  • Feedburner
  • SEC.gov: List of Subsidiaries of Regristrant, Google